How?
We can do it through the use of some innovative social technology: Mandate a compulsory substitution of cannabis for tobacco in all manufactured tobacco products.
OK, I know you are already snickering, but give me a moment, and I believe I can bring you all on board. Each year, at least 440,000 Americans die from tobacco related diseases, in fact, a recent report suggests that as much as 74% of all cancers are related to tobacco smoke. Those statistics reveal a national tragedy, not only in terms of human suffering, but also for the staggering financial impact on our families, and the strain it puts on our national health care system.
There is a powerful lobby that guards the interests of the tobacco companies, and their commercial partners (very powerful, indeed, considering the stakes). Therefore, any solution to this yearly carnage must also take into account those forces that would keep America smoking tobacco.
Cannabis, unlike tobacco, does not kill its users. In fact, the plant has has both anti-cancinogenic and anti-microbial properties. Studies reveal that even long term, chronic cannabis smokers have shown no elevated risks of cancer of any kind. The main objection to its use appears to be the fact that it produces a mild euphoria when ingested. One has to ask, which is a preferable side effect: death or happiness?
By mandating the substitution of cannabis in manufactured tobacco products (rather than an outright ban on tobacco itself, which would only serve to criminalize users), one would not only address the business needs of cigarette manufactures, but also those of its agricultural suppliers, since cannabis is well suited to the same soils that support tobacco.
If saving 440,000 lives each year is not enough, consider these additional factors.
1. Nicotine (for which tobacco cigarettes, and chewing tobacco are simply delivery systems) is highly addictive and extremely difficult to abandon. Cannabis, on the other hand, rates below caffein on the addiction scale.
2. The tobacco plant has only one use: to satisfy the craving of the nicotine addict. Cannabis, has in fact, a spectrum of uses which include the manufacture of fiber, oil, food-grade protein, building materials, bio-fuel, plastics, and medicine.
3. By eliminating the prohibition of cannabis, we effectively increase our police force by 5%, since, presently, 5 out of every 100 police officers do nothing but arrest and book people for possessing cannabis.*
4. In addition, with the commercial production of cannabis by farmers, we eliminate the destruction of our national parklands and forests by illegal growers.
5. By ending the prohibition of cannabis we take the profit motive away from drug cartels, and street dealers, and eliminate a good deal of funding of illegal activities.
6. By regulating the sale and distribution of cannabis, we protect our children from unscrupulous pushers who never ask for proof of age, and instead put sales into the hands of licensed vendors who would face stiff fines and penalties if they sold to minors.
7. Finally, by ending prohibition, we remove the restrictions on cannabis research. This would support the development of a vast array of extremely promising cannabinoid-based medicines which have already been shown to be effective in treating a wide range of diseases including glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, nerve trauma, inflammation, MRSA, arthritis, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, spasticity, epilepsy, Crohn's disease, ADD, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, depression, and cancer (to name a few).
See what I'm talking about?
So the next time a friend, or family member is facing the "big C", or another of the above conditions, why don't you ask them what they think.
And ask yourself this, what is the measure of 440,000 lives?
Still laughing?
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* According to the FBI uniform crime report, in 2007, arrests for simple cannabis possession approached 800,000. This constitutes fully 5% of all arrests for anything and everything in the United States.
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Comments
At most you will be staving off the inevitable for a couple years on average at a cost of bankrupting our social safety net, such as it is.
Which is not to say that I oppose more people smoking marijuanna.
Neil, this years batch of lambs to the slaughter will die, that's true, and next year, and next year, and next year . . . but 20 or 30 years from now, that next batch of 440,000 won't die. I am willing to wait for the effects to be felt, aren't you?
they won't die thirty years from now, they will die thirty-two years from now. On the upside they will be dying of plain old disease, not "smoking related" for whatever that may be worth.
Most people who die of "smoking related disease" are quite old and their end is coming soon either way.
The same thing is true of "obese" people.
We can not avoid these deaths, only forstall them for a little while (an instant in geological time). Sure, some smokers may have ten years to gain, but some have only a few weeks and some no time at all.
Until mortality is solved once and for all the only way to avoid deaths is to avoid births.
Add to this over 70% of all lung cancer deaths are within the normal span for normal death and this is also true with heart attacks. Which means the majority of people who die from cancer and heart attacks are over 70 years old, and more than half are over 80.
Personally if someone lives beyond the normal life span the cause of death should be normal regardless of what kills you, heart, lungs, or cancer.
Tobacco is the new whipping boy of America. Frankly I think the numbers have been inflated. Insurance company's have inflated the risk to increase premiums with little or no risk to themselves. We are talking about billions of dollars.
The current drug laws were created by prohibitionist. The mindset that has made marijuana illegal would also make alcohol, tobacco, and even caffeine illegal if they thought they could get away with it. This group does not believe in wise use only no use. They see no difference between one drink and out of control drunk. They consider all marijuana use addiction, period.
My post wasn't really so much anti-tobacco (though, as an ex-smoker, I find it unpleasant) as to underline that the prohibition of cannabis is indefensible.
My take on the real guns behind cannabis prohibition: it has little to do with morality, and everything to do with profit. Oh, they use the morality issue to garner public support, but it is greed for money and power that directs this little passion play.
As it stands now, the funding and lobbying behind prohibition comes from the usual suspects: breweries, pharmaceutical companies, infrared imaging equipment manufactures, the drug testing industry, the law enforcement industry, the prison industry including the prison guard union, etc.
I definitely don't want tobacco smoking criminalized — but I do think that those who want to keep tobacco available for their own use, ought to get behind drug policy reform, because, believe me, tobacco will be next.
Alcohol will always be with us, and frankly the death by are a result of abuse which most do not consider the problem with the substance, but the user. It is funny though, it is the opposite with marijuana and other drugs the substance is blamed not the abuser.